US carrier JetBlue Airways warned on Thursday it expects Q3 revenue to be at the low end of its prior forecast due to a bigger hit from weather-related disruptions and gaps in air traffic control staffing. The airline also said that close-in leisure bookings during September were lower than expected. Airlines have struggled with adverse weather and shortages of air traffic controllers this year. JetBlue’s CEO had earlier this month told Reuters the carrier had to cut flights “because the system can’t cope with the number of flights.” The twin disruptions are expected to push up costs in Q3, JetBlue said on Thursday. The airline also joined peers in bumping up its Q3 fuel cost forecast to approximately $2.95 per gallon, up from its prior range of $2.75 to $2.90 per gallon due to a significant rise in crude oil prices.<br/>
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The parent company of Allegiant Air says its CE has resigned and that chairman and former CEO Maurice Gallagher will return to lead the budget airline. Allegiant said Thursday that John Redmond resigned as CEO and a director of the Las Vegas-based company, effective immediately. The company did not say why he left. Shares of Allegiant Travel Co. rose 4% in morning trading. Gallagher, who has played a role in several low-cost airlines, became Allegiant’s majority owner and joined the board in 2001. He was CEO from 2003 until last year. He oversaw a period of strong growth, as the company built a fleet of more than 120 planes and added more routes. Allegiant primarily serves leisure travelers heading to vacation destinations such as Las Vegas. Like rivals Spirit and Frontier, the airline charges low base fares but generates revenue from fees on extra charges. Besides the airline, Allegiant is building a resort in Charlotte Harbor, Florida, that is scheduled to open in Q4. The company has reported $144.6m in profit during the first six months of the year, compared with a loss of $3.5m in the same period last year. Redmond joined Allegiant’s board in 2007, served as president, and took over as CEO last June after a career in the hotel business, including high-level jobs at MGM and Caesars World.<br/>
Mexican low-cost carrier VivaAerobus has been quick to announce new routes to the USA after the US aviation regulator’s long-awaited decision to lift the country’s safety status back to Category 1 after more than two years. Monterrey-based VivaAerobus said on 27 September that it was introducing six new routes to the United States – to Austin, Denver, Miami, New York, Oakland and Orlando, three domestic Mexican routes – to Durango, Tapachula and La Paz, and an expansion of its network from Monterrey. “This expansion of services will result in a total of 13m seats offered in Monterrey by 2024,” the airline says. “This represents an increase in capacity of 23%, almost 2.5m more seats than what it will operate in 2023. Monterrey to Denver will begin operations on 25 January with two flights a week and service to Austin will launch on 22 March with four-times-weekly flights. The route to Orlando will begin on 9 May with thrice-weekly flights, and services to Miami and San Francisco (Oakland) will begin on 1 July with three and two weekly frequencies, respectively, the airline says. The details of the Monterrey-to-New York connection ”will be announced soon”. “This increase is the largest that Viva has made in its 16 years of history,” the carrier adds. Volaris and Aeromexico are expected to soon follow suit with new route announcements. Mexico’s Infrastructure, Communications and Transportation minister Jorge Nuo Lara recently said Volaris will likely request 33 new routes, looking to fly to Los Angeles, Chicago and San Antonio, as well as to Tulum and Merida. Aeromexico is looking at five new routes. <br/>
Saudi Arabia's new airline Riyadh Air has moved to the final stages of agreeing a sizeable order of narrow-body aircraft, with a deal likely to be announced in the coming months, CEO Tony Douglas said on Thursday, without elaborating. Douglas first said the company was in talks with Airbus and Boeing to buy a significant number of narrow-body jets in June. "Probably in the coming months we'll reveal (the deal). We're in the final stages of a sizable narrow-body order … and that one might not be our last order either," he told an event in Lisbon. He said in June the order would be finalised before next year's Farnborough event in July in Britain, which could mean a deal could be announced at the Dubai airshow in November this year. The new airline will take its first deliveries of wide-body jets from Boeing and start operations two years from now in the capital Riyadh.<br/>
El Al Israel Airlines said Thursday it would add flights to New York in 2024 after the United States agreed to admit Israel into a programme that will allow visa-free entry by Israeli citizens. Starting next June, Israel's flag carrier will add a daily flight to New York's JFK Airport that will bring daily flights to JFK and Newark airports to as many as six per day and 33 per week. On Wednesday, the US government said Israel would be admitted to the US Visa Waiver Program (VWP) as of Nov. 30. "This is a breakthrough, and we are preparing to expand the flight frequencies based on the expected increase in demand," CEO Dina Ben-Tal Ganancia said, adding that New York had long been the top destination for Israelis. El Al said a survey it commissioned of Israeli adults who plan to travel abroad found that just 30% of them hold visas to enter the United States, while 40% of those considering flying to the U.S. said the need for a visa was one of the main barriers to flying there.<br/>
Video has emerged of the catastrophic landing on 23 September of an Ilyushin Il-76 transport jet at Mali’s Gao international airport. Details are still emerging about the crash in the West African country, which killed an unknown number of people and destroyed the aircraft. However, newly disclosed video purportedly shows the Il-76, believed to have been operated by Mali’s air force, failing to stop after touching down on the runway at Gao. Posted by air accident database Aviation Safety Network (ASN) to social media site X, the video shows shows a seemingly normal touch down by the Soviet-era transport jet. It landed on Gao’s 2,500m (8,202ft)-long Runway 06L, according to Airport-data.com. Filmed from behind the aircraft, the video shows puffs of white smoke when the landing gear contacts the runway. But the jet appears to have landed relatively far along Runway 06L, not near its landing threshold. After touching down, the IL-76 does not appear to significantly slow down, and it crosses the far edge of the runway within 12sec. Analysis of the footage suggests the jet landed in the final third of the runway, which would leave it about 800m to stop. That figure is supported by other visual hints in the crash footage. The Il-76 type has an official length of 46.6m. The transport attempting to land in Gao appears to travel the equivalent distance of approximately 10-15 lengths of the aircraft body before exiting the runway. By that estimation, the Il-76 would have had just under 700m to cut speed. How much braking distance the jet required remains unknown and dependent on various factors, including its payload. But for comparison reasons, Boeing’s C-17 Globemaster, a four-engined jet transport similarly sized to the Il-76, requires 914m to land, according to Boeing. Upon crossing the edge of Runway 06L, the Il-76 careens across a dirt field for several seconds, kicking up a large dust cloud. Although the aircraft is largely obscured, its tail pitches up as the Il-76 apparently drops into a ravine. The cargo jet explodes moments later, with a large fireball and black smoke rising from the gulch. Story has more.<br/>